This is a photo from yesterday (courtesy of Dr. Zegans) of the group exploring the area around our home for the next 6 days. Pictured is the Aravind Eye Hospital out patient building. Today, we learned about the history of Aravind.

Dr. Prajna, son of one of the founders of Aravind, was kind enough to give us a presentation about the hospital system. He is featured in the photo above answering our questions after giving the Genesis presentation. Aravind is almost completely self-sustaining and 50% of patients receive free or subsidized care. Aravind doctors. It started off as an 11-bed hospital, founded by Dr. Venkataswamy and family members in 1976. Today, the hospital has over a thousand beds. The Aravind Model is referenced in prestigious business classes around the world as the most efficient eye care system in the world.

We got a tour of the Aravind outpatient center. It was super busy and everyone was hard at work. Shown on the left is the telehealth unit. Each Aravind ophthalmologist is able to see 300 patients a day in rural areas via telehealth! Pictured on the right are Daniel, Fiona (grad student), Arjun, and Mazie on their tour.

After touring around the impressive Aravind facilities, we headed home to Inspirations Hostel to have lunch. The food in India continues to be delicious! Pictured above are 3 of our lovely undergrads: Ray, Maia, and Geneva enjoying their lunch.

We spent the rest of the afternoon working on our presentations in preparation for the scientific session, which starts tomorrow! Everyone is hard at work.

We ended the night with a lovely dinner at Courtyard Marriott. Thank you so much to Aravind and Ranjit for hosting! Our stomachs are fueled for a long and exciting day tomorrow. Goodnight Madurai!

Signing off,

Breggy and Mazie